Pubs, restaurants, hairdressers, cinemas and theme parks reopen, and weddings and baptisms take place as the lockdown eases
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Earl Cameron, ‘Britain’s first black film star’, dies aged 102
Bermudian-born actor rose to prominence in the 1950s in films such as Pool of London and Sapphire, as well as appearing in the 007 film Thunderball
Earl Cameron, who with his debut role in the 1951 film Pool of London, became one of the first significant black actors in British cinema, has died aged 102. His agent confirmed the news to the Guardian, saying “he passed away peacefully at home surrounded by his wife and family” on Friday in Kenilworth in Warwickshire.
Cameron’s significance to the current generation of black British actors was underlined by tributes on social media. David Harewood described him as “a total legend”, while Paterson Joseph wrote: “His generation’s pioneering shoulders are what my generation of actors stand on. No shoulders were broader than this gentleman with the voice of god and the heart of a kindly prince.” Historian David Olusoga added: “A remarkable and wonderful man. Not just a brilliant actor but a link to a deeper history.”
Continue reading...Netflix stands by hit film 365 Days despite Duffy’s sex trafficking criticism
Streaming platform says it is giving viewers ‘more choice’ after British singer accuses film of glamourising rape
Netflix will continue to stream hit Polish film 365 Days despite calls for its withdrawal, including by British singer Duffy, who accused it of glamourising rape and sex trafficking.
The Welsh singer-songwriter wrote an open letter to the Netflix chief executive, Reed Hastings, raising her concerns about the film based on a bestselling Polish book trilogy by Blanka Lipińska.
Continue reading...Jay-Z’s Team Roc call for prosecution of police officer who shot and killed 3 men
Officer Joseph Mensah was found to have acted in self-defence in two of the shootings, with another currently under review
Jay-Z’s social justice initiative Team Roc has called for a Wisconsin police officer to be fired and prosecuted, after he shot and killed three people while on duty.
Joseph Mensah, of Milwaukee suburb Wauwatosa, killed Alvin Cole, Antonio Gonzales and Jay Anderson in three separate incidents between 2015 and 2020. He is under review for the most recent killing, of Cole, but the earlier two were deemed self-defence and he did not face charges.
Continue reading...Vivica A Fox: ‘Black Lives Matter is going to be Trump’s demise’
The actor has pushed the envelope for portrayals of black women and been up close with the president and Harvey Weinstein. “You come at me crazy, it’s gonna be on like popcorn,” she warns
It is 8am and Vivica A Fox, the star of two Independence Day films, two seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm, both parts of Kill Bill and, latterly, two Sharknado movies, has been awake for hours. She sprang out of bed at 4am, pottered around and “did a little social media post” about her podcast, Hustling with Vivica A Fox. It’s a spin-off from Every Day I’m Hustling, her memoir-cum-self-help manual which contains health tips (“Hydrate, girl!”), social media advice (“Use hashtags to join big conversations”) and underwear secrets (“I’m a G-string type of gal”). Once the podcast was online this morning, she explains, “I said to myself: ‘Let’s get some coffee on. It’s showtime!’”
First on the agenda is the droll new thriller Arkansas, in which she plays the mysterious “Her”, who works as go-between in a drugs ring and is first seen in curlers, toe separators and a jazzy kaftan; Liam Hemsworth, Vince Vaughn and John Malkovich struggle in vain not to be outshone. Down the line from her villa in the San Fernando Valley, where she has a spectacular living room view of the Santa Susana mountains, Fox talks through the various traits of Her: the character’s serenity (“That came from my mother, who’s religious”); her cool control (“I brought in a presidential thing there”); her no-nonsense efficiency (“A lil’ bit of my gangsta style”). But we are done with Arkansas in under five minutes, which is roughly the combined length of her scenes in the film.
Continue reading...Jenni Murray: ‘I hate the diet industry. It’s caused me misery’
The Woman’s Hour presenter has written a book about her lifelong struggle with her weight. She discusses fat-shaming, body positivity and what happened when she had bariatric surgery
A few years ago, Jenni Murray was out walking with her son and dogs when she saw a potential vision of her future. While she was strolling painfully around the park, stopping to rest at benches where she could, a woman not much larger than Murray passed them on a mobility scooter, her own dogs’ leads attached to the handlebars. If Murray – at 24 stone (152kg) – didn’t do something about her weight, her concerned son said, that might be her before long. How did she feel about herself at that point?
“Extremely obese,” she says. “I was not the fit, active person that I wanted to be. I just lumbered everywhere. I’d had breast cancer and a double hip replacement in my 50s, but it was the obesity that was going to kill me.” It was the final push Murray needed, after a lifetime of dieting, and a warning from her doctor that she was on the way to developing type 2 diabetes. “I thought, I’ve got to do something about it, I’m 64 and I’m not going to make it to 70.” She adds, triumph in her voice, “And I did make it to 70!” She reached the milestone birthday in May.
Continue reading...Kanye West: Wash Us in the Blood review – an intensely potent study of race and faith
This new track sees Kanye at his very best, corralling his anger with masterful focus into an apocalyptic vision of America
America, divided along racial and political lines and led by its own Herod, faces an invisible plague and a public reckoning against its history of violence. It’s against this Biblical backdrop that Kanye West imagines the next apocalyptic event, in one of his most focused and arresting tracks for years.
Wash Us in the Blood sees the rapper call for a blood rain to deliver black America from evil. We’re at the point, perhaps, where normal water won’t wash; an emergency where we need something stronger. That sense of alarm is amplified by the two-note siren motif, a flattened-out version of the feedback sound on The Life of Pablo’s Feedback or Yeezus’s Send It Up, another of his warnings that puts the listener on alert. It gets your blood up.
Continue reading...Hollywood comedy legend Carl Reiner dies aged 98
Director of Steve Martin comedies The Jerk and The Man With Two Brains was also famed for his collaboration with Mel Brooks
- Hadley Freeman meets Reiner and Brooks, February 2020
- Peter Bradshaw on Carl Reiner
- A life in pictures
Carl Reiner, the veteran comic and film-maker renowned for his double act with Mel Brooks as well as directing a string of hit comedies including The Jerk and The Man With Two Brains, has died 98.
Variety confirmed the news, reporting that his publicist said he died of natural causes on Monday night at his home in Beverly Hills.
Continue reading...Poetic justice: black lives and the power of poetry
Leading black British poets including Linton Kwesi Johnson, Grace Nichols and Raymond Antrobus share their thoughts on protest, change and the trailblazers who inspired them. Introduction by Kadish Morris
Performance poetry revolutionised me. When I was 13, my mother invited me to a group called Leeds Young Authors, which she co-ran with founder and poet Khadijah Ibrahiim. Together, along with visiting poets, they ran writing workshops for teenagers. The selling point was that I would get the chance to travel to the US to compete in a poetry slam festival, but the excitement of getting on an aeroplane was soon overshadowed by what I can only describe as enlightenment. Poems performed at the festival taught me about police brutality, gentrification and climate change before I even owned a computer. Performance poetry immersed me in a world of critical thinking, but also, a community of black poets. I shared stages, shook hands and was taught by some of the greatest black British and African American poets before the age of 20. From Sonia Sanchez to Saul Williams to Lemn Sissay and Jackie Kay.
Black British history and literature are intrinsically connected. Poems such as Linton Kwesi Johnson’s Five Nights of Bleeding explored the 1981 Brixton riots, while Benjamin Zephaniah’s The Death of Joy Gardner lamented on the killing of a Jamaican student who died in 1993 after being detained during a police immigration raid at her home. Literature was a forum for idea-sharing, community-building and support too. The Caribbean Artists Movement, founded by Barbadian poet Kamau Brathwaite, Trinidadian publisher John La Rose and Panamanian-Jamaican writer Andrew Salkey in London in 1966, set about promoting the work of marginalised Caribbean artists, writers and poets. More than 50 years later, black writers are yet to be fully absorbed into the mainstream. A 2018 study found that only 7% of work published in poetry journals were by people from BAME backgrounds. Black voices have often felt like guests in UK literature, despite being routinely summoned during political events. “No one leaves home unless / home is the mouth of a shark” – a line from Home by the British-Somali poet Warsan Shire – was a prominent slogan of the migrant crisis in 2015.
Continue reading...Glamour, glitz and artificially light skin: Bollywood stars in their own racism row
India’s film-makers accused of hypocrisy for supporting Black Lives Matter while keeping silent on bias for fair complexions
The Bollywood film industry is a global phenomenon built on glitz and glamour. But it has also faced accusations of being among the biggest purveyors of racism for glorifying fair complexions in its hyperbolic love stories and catchy songs. Now, amid anger over what some consider Bollywood’s hypocritical stance on Black Lives Matter, the industry has finally been forced to confront one of its most enduring taboos.
Bollywood has witnessed considerable liberalisation in recent years. But while taboos such as same-sex relationships have been relegated to a past in which stars hid behind a rose bush to steal a kiss, the industry’s determination to cling to colourism – prejudice against people of your own race on the basis of skin colour – has become a cause of anger and dismay.
Continue reading...Milton Glaser, groundbreaking I ❤️ NY designer, dies aged 91
Glaser’s bold logo, created for free in 1977, helped boost New York’s image and he was also part of the team that founded New York magazine
Milton Glaser, the groundbreaking graphic designer who adorned Bob Dylan’s silhouette with psychedelic hair and summed up the feelings for his native New York with “I (HEART) NY,” died Friday, on his 91st birthday.
The cause was a stroke and Glaser had also had renal failure, his wife, Shirley Glaser, told The New York Times.
Continue reading...The Simpsons stops using white actors to voice non-white characters
Move comes amid widespread reckoning for American pop culture following mass protests after George Floyd’s death
The Simpsons is ending the use of white actors to voice characters of colour, the show’s producers have said.
“Moving forward, ‘The Simpsons’ will no longer have white actors voice non-white characters,” they said in a statement on Friday.
Continue reading...Roger Robinson meets Rachel Long: ‘I feel like a mosquito taking on Godzilla’
Continuing our series of cross-generational conversations between black British artists, poets Roger Robinson and Rachel Long discuss the prejudices of the white publishing world and the power of today’s youth
Roger Robinson, 52, is the 2020 winner of the TS Eliot prize and the Ondaatje prize for his latest collection A Portable Paradise. Having previously explored his memories of Trinidad, where he moved to from Britain when he was four, his fifth collection focuses on the lives of black Britons, from Grenfell to the birth of his son. Rachel Long, 31, has recently published her debut, My Darling from the Lions, and in 2015 set up Octavia, a poetry collection for women of colour hosted monthly at the Southbank Centre in London.
Roger Robinson: I wanted to start with a poem. It is called Won’t You Celebrate With Me by Lucille Clifton:
Continue reading...Elton John’s ex-wife Renate Blauel launches legal action against singer
Ex-partner who has avoided limelight since divorce is seeking high court injunction
Sir Elton John’s ex-wife, Renate Blauel, has launched legal proceedings against the singer at the high court, in a rare intervention by a woman who has been avoiding publicity for decades.
Blauel filed the legal paperwork last week and is seeking an injunction against her former partner, according to filings seen by the Guardian.
Continue reading...Woody Allen’s new film to open San Sebastián film festival
Rifkin’s Festival, which was shot in the Spanish city last year, chosen to headline annual film festival
Rifkin’s Festival, the new film by Woody Allen, has been selected to open the San Sebastián film festival in Spain.
Starring Elena Anaya, Louis Garrel and Gina Gershon, Rifkin’s Festival was shot in and around the city in 2019, and according to the plot synopsis takes place during the festival itself. “It tells the story of a married American couple who go to the San Sebastián festival and get caught up in the magic of the event, the beauty and charm of the city and the fantasy of movies. She has an affair with a brilliant French movie director, and he falls in love with a beautiful Spanish woman who lives there.”
Continue reading...Michael Eavis: Glastonbury could go bankrupt if it can’t be staged in 2021
Exclusive: Founder says another cancellation would ‘be curtains’ for festival and has hopes for testing scheme, with daughter Emily saying they will ‘mutate to survive’
Glastonbury organisers Michael and Emily Eavis fear they could be in serious financial danger if the festival was cancelled again due to coronavirus.
Speaking exclusively to the Guardian to mark the festival’s 50th anniversary, Michael said: “We have to run next year, otherwise we would seriously go bankrupt … It has to happen for us, we have to carry on. Otherwise it will be curtains. I don’t think we could wait another year.”
Continue reading...Christiana Ebohon-Green meets Wunmi Mosaku: ‘It’s exhausting being the non-threatening black woman’
The TV director and actor talk candidly about how racism is draining, limiting and ingrained. But is leaving to work in the US the answer?
The director Christiana Ebohon-Green (EastEnders, Call the Midwife, Soon Gone: A Windrush Chronicle) and the actor Wunmi Mosaku, 33, (Luther, End of the F**king World and Misha Green’s upcoming HBO/Sky Atlantic drama series, Lovecraft Country) have met before. In fact, they have worked together, on Ebohon-Green’s Bafta-longlisted short, Some Sweet Oblivious Antidote. They both have fond memories of the sun-dappled shoot by the Thames, with a (mostly black) cast of actors. But not every experience on set has been so joyful. Amid some laughter, a few tears and many weary sighs, they swap horror stories of industry racism, discuss solidarity among black creatives, and the opportunities and risks involved in a move to the US.
CEG: I’ve worked on a lot of mainstream television drama, so I’ve often been the only [black person] on set. For me [having this wider conversation about racism] is a relief. Sometimes, you air issues and people are like: “Oh yeah, we know! We’ve solved that! Can you stop going on?” So I’ve been very careful about what I said and assumed people understood.
Continue reading...It’s a botch-up! Monkey Christ and the worst art repairs of all time
As another religious painting restoration goes horribly wrong, we take a look at some of the finest examples of butchered statues, art installations and frescoes
In the latest instalment of the greatest genre of art news – and I write that as a lover of art – another restoration has gone awry. The word “awry” is being generous.
This is the revelation that a private collector, based in Valencia, paid €1,200 (£1,070) for a restoration job on baroque painter Bartolomé Esteban Murillo’s Immaculate Conception of Los Venerables. It is no longer immaculate. It now looks like an e-fit issued by a local police force, with those thin eyebrows popular in the 90s. What’s more, the restorer (who it turns out was a furniture restorer by trade) made two attempts – the second significantly worse than the first. That one, the e-fit one, has the Virgin Mary staring straight ahead, which isn’t even the same position as the original, which has Mary looking to the heavens.
Continue reading...Authors call for removal of Booker prize vice-president over ‘homophobic’ views
Emma Nicholson’s views on same-sex marriage raised as concern by writers and one former Booker winner
Damian Barr is leading a charge of writers, including one former Booker prize winner, who are calling on the Booker Foundation to remove the allegedly “homophobic” peer Emma Nicholson from her position as vice-president.
Lady Nicholson of Winterbourne, who voted against the same-sex marriage bill in 2013, is the widow of the late former chairman of Booker, Sir Michael Caine, who helped establish the prize. She is currently a vice-president of the Booker Foundation, and a former trustee of the prize.
Continue reading...Moscow’s Victory Day parade – in pictures
Russia is holding its postponed Victory Day military parade despite rising coronavirus infections. The parade celebrates the defeat of Nazi Germany and has grown since Vladimir Putin came to power
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